1. I think a reasonable precaution, and minimal precaution would be to require anyone with a semi auto weapon to keep it locked up if there is anyone below the age of 21 in the home.

2. Or...if there is anyone with a history of mental illness, criminal history, or spousal abuse in the home.

#2 is already covered. It's part of the purchasing and federal vetting process for any firearm and part of my state's concealed carry application process. #1 would have kept that 15-yo boy in Houston from saving his and his 12-yo sister's lives from home invaders with his dad's AR-15 last week.

At the writing of the Constitution, slave owners used armed militias to control their slaves. The slave states were afraid the federal government would have a standing army, and would disband or control the state militias, and use that power to dismantle slavery. The second amendment was put in place to reassure the slave states, and directly benefited slave owners such as Washington and Jefferson. Rather than preventing tyranny, the second amendment enforced tyranny.

Yeah, our founding fathers sure "got it".

We rid the nation of slavery, past time to put the second amendment to rest.

There is a certain cognitive dissonance apparent among the responsible gun owners out there. (This does not include Iso, who accepts made-up facts without reservation.) There seems to be a general agreement that a gun registration requirement that doesn't prohibit gun ownership is appropriate. There are also some thoughtful comments, from the left and the right, that focusing on only rapid-fire assault rifles and clips/magazines is ineffective because a) clips can rapidly be replaced, and b) handguns are causing far more carnage. There also appears to be agreement that more rigorous enforcement of prohibitions against gun ownership by felons is appropriate. Registration of legal weapons and reporting on ammunition sales will help in that effort.

I am of the opinion that a consensus solution is better than an illusive search for the perfect solution. The saying is something to the effect that the perfection offends the gods. But what I don't understand is the right giving gun manufacturers, the NRA and the GOP a pass on this issue. It might well be that mandatory gun registration, reporting of gun thefts, and an effective data base on ammunition sales are all that is reasonable. But it was this unholy trinity that prevented any regulation of gun registration at the Federal level, opened up a loophole for un-documented sales at gun shows, and blocked research into data collection on the statistics of gun deaths.

If we reach an agreement that can be supported by pro-gun Democrats and at least some Republicans that breaks the death grip of the NRA on national election politics we will have made significant progress.

By the way, mandatory gun locks, as in trigger locks, were specifically prohibited in the 2008 Supreme Court decision on Washington D. C.'s gun law. While it may be a good idea, and good practice by a responsible gun owner, it cannot be required.

Johnl...It sounds like you ARE suggesting another law...that would require gun registration for all. Something, to which, I agree.
New York has just passed stiff gun control measures. Can gun control not be a state's issue? Why should Utah need to meet New York's or California's gun laws?

I have no problems with checking people out BEFORE they buy a gun. ANY gun. After all you have to start somewhere. But to try to legislate WHAT kind of gun they buy (other than a tank) I think is pushing freedom a bit. After all, what happens if the law starts telling you what kind of car you can own in the US? It's a personal choice, just like a gun purchase is.

But what people really, really don't get is more laws will not solve anything. How many crimes are caused by citizens who obey the law and own legal guns? Hmm, very, very few. Now many crimes are caused by people who don't obey laws and have legal guns? Very few. How many crimes are caused by people who don't obey laws and have illegal guns? Lots. So what will a few more laws against guns solve? Nothing but make law makers feel like they accomplished something....

I think you mistyped, John. "How many crimes are caused by citizens who own guns and obey the law?" None, axiomatically. Anyone who obeys the law logically cannot be one who breaks the law.

Crimes are also only committed by people who don't obey laws. I think we all know that more crimes are committed by people who don't own any gun, legal or otherwise, than by those in possession of a gun.

With all due respect, your post is a bit confused and I humbly suggest you are not the only one making this comparison to suggest that most gun crimes (not including wrongful possession) are caused by people holding unlicensed or illegal guns. The statistics simply don't bear this out. In fact, the latest survey of inmates in prisons on this subject demonstrate the stark opposite to be true. Only 15% of state inmates carried or used a gun in commission of their crimes for which they serve a sentence, and only 13% in federal prison did so.

Why is it that so many claim that the USA is overflowing with bad guys with illegal guns? If it's true, then serious gun control should never be perceived as the enemy. If it's not true, many people say it is so in order to support a false argument that personal defense requires gun ownership.

Well first of all don't belive the statistics. Let me see what my 30 years as an LEO taught me.

1. Smart people sedom get caught
1. Smart people who get caught seldom go to trial.
1. Smart people who get caught and go to trial seldom get found guilty.

Why? Because our justice system isn't about justice. It's an adversary system between two attorneys. So how many acts of violence involving illegal weapons make these statistics? ONLY the ones who get caught. Which is pretty much the tip of the iceburg. But that isn't what they want to show you on the news or put in the reports. Spend 30 years "on the streets" and your opinion would be different.

As to your statistics. Look at them more carefully. How many of these people in prison, or federal prison (give me a break you mean country club prison right???) are actually DANGEROUS felons?? Not as many as you think. Take a look at the law books at all the crimes that are felonies? Just because it is a felony doesn't mean it is is violent. Heck 20 years or go Marajuana possession was a felony, now it's a ticket (or getting legal in a few states). So you can wave your statistics at me all you want, and I'll just laugh because quite frankly you don't have a clew. Take a statistics class. Two people can take the same stats to argue opposing views depending on how they tweak them. Before I believe any statistical data I want to see what the pool was and the system for analysing it and quite frankly what the agenda of the person publishing the statistics was.

John, I'm having a hard time here because at first you say there is a problem with my statistics, then explain that only a certain or small percentage of perps get sentenced and do time. You then ask me to consider your own "statistics" that, though they be more accurate or less, you assert without any statistics whatsoever. It's not that your observations from the street are without value, of course not. I simply want to discuss with you your first statements but you blow me off by telling me I "have no clew (sic)."

John, I've tried cases. I understand the difference between those in prison and the vast remainder who commit crimes but never end up in prison. The report I cited can be punched with holes, but I employed it only for what it's worth: 13-15% of crimes committed by inmates involved a firearm. Your argument is that not only do we suffer from these 13-15% but the situation is far worse because, at least in part, a bunch of people who committed crimes are never caught let alone imprisoned.

I completely agree with that statement and acknowledge a far worse problem requires very strong measures, including stricter laws that you dismiss on the theory the new laws have little or no deterrent effect. That's quite a claim and one I'm happy discuss if you like but I think at best it is a gross understatement._________________Support Your Sport. Join US Windsurfing!
www.USWindsurfing.org

In 2009, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 66.9% of all homicides in the United States were perpetrated using a firearm.[5] There were 52,447 deliberate and 23,237 accidental non-fatal gunshot injuries in the United States during 2000.[6] Two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the United States are suicides. Of the 30,470 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2010, 19,392 (63.6%) were suicide deaths, and 11,078 (36.4%) homicide deaths.[7] The Brady Institute can shove its “Suicide Proof Your Home” campaigns discussed at
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1172102535
up their collective asses; it's MY GD choice, not some pope's, or cop's, or politician's, or liberal zealot's, when and how I CHOOSE to relieve my or my wife's misery when my terminal cancer renders life far worse than death. None of the above has ANY GD right to dictate that she suffer as I spend months in one of medical science's worse forms of death.

That same Brady group, discussing Obama's highly politicized gun speech and EA, recommends "Making gun trafficking a federal offense". THEN WHY IS ERIC HOLDER NOT UNDER INDICTMENT FOR FAST AND FURIOUS?

Obama's "40% of gun purchases require no background check" came out of his ass. a) If a sale is private, how would the government know about it? b) If a gun is bought over the internet, it proceeds through local federally licensed dealers with the full federal background check. c) Reported but not independently verified by me: that 40% figure came from a pre-Brady (background check) Law poll of 251 gun purchasers 20 years ago.

NY's new 7-round-max-magazine restriction applies not only to legal gun owners but also to the police protecting citizens from criminals shooting AR-15s with 50-round magazines.

One state or county (I forget which) required that handguns be kept disassembled even if your home is under direct assault by armed invaders.

From the IBD:
500 Murders In Chicago Show Gun Bans Don't Work
The mayor of what is at once America's most gun-controlled city and its murder capital wants an assault weapons ban like the one he pushed in 1994. Except it didn't work then, and it won't work now. Up to 80% of Chicago's murders and shootings are gang-related, according to police. By one estimate, the city has almost 70,000 gang members. A police audit last spring identified 59 gangs and 625 factions; most were on the South and West sides. Yet, in the view of Chicago's mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the answer to violence by crazies and criminals in his city and nationally is more gun control, not more gang and goon control.

"As somebody who stood by President Clinton's side to make sure we had a ban on assault weapons, I do not want to see more weapons on the street, more guns on the street," Emanuel said at a Chicago Police Department graduation and promotion ceremony on Dec. 17, shortly after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. "It's time that we as a city have an assault weapons ban. It's time that we as a state have an assault weapons ban. It's time that we as a country have an assault weapons ban," Emanuel said.

The problem is that Emanuel's ban, in place from 1994 to 2004, had no measurable effect on crime.

Statistics compiled by a Northeastern University professor, the Census Bureau and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show the number of mass shootings and victims from 1976 to 2010 has fluctuated annually, but without any major upward or downward trend. Some 2,956 people have been killed in 646 mass shootings over this 35-year period, with a mass shooting defined by the FBI as one in which four or more people (not including the shooter) are killed in a single incident and typically in a single location. FBI homicide data show no discernible trend in the number of mass shootings or victims during that time.

A chart using these data and published in the Journal Sentinel does show that while the Clinton/Emanuel assault weapons ban was in place, from 1994 to 2004, mass shootings actually rose slightly and that after its repeal there was no precipitous rise, as supporters had warned.

From 1985-94, there were 173 mass shootings and 766 victims. From 1995-04 (starting with 1995 because it was the first full year the law was in effect), there were 182 mass shootings and 830 victims. Clearly the assault weapons ban, which listed banned arms more on their scary appearance than any deadly potential, had no effect.

"You had that for 10 years when Dianne Feinstein passed that ban in '94. It was on the books. Columbine occurred right in the middle of it (April 20, 1999). It didn't make any difference," NRA chief Wayne LaPierre argued in a recent appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press," where host David Gregory may have violated the law himself by possessing and waving before the cameras a high-capacity ammunition clip.

What has had an effect on crime, and even mass shootings, is the rise in the number of concealed carry states from only a handful 25 years ago to some 41 now. Major crimes, except in gun-controlled major cities, have shown a continuing decline that has paralleled the rise in the number of right-to-carry states.

Maybe Mayor Emanuel, instead of calling for a new assault weapons ban, should call on Illinois to become a concealed carry state.

Should they close all liquor stores because drunk drivers plow into vans full of children? More kids die from drunk drivers than guns.

SNIP

God bless those little children. I pray for their parents.

Wonderful point, Steven. We elect not to ban the purchase of alcohol despite the known societal damage because we like it so much. Fine. But we regulate alcohol to the ends of the earth. Some states ban any consumption of alcohol by kids save for religious and medicinal purposes, some are less restrictive and allow consumption in the home while under a parent's care. None that I'm aware allow a parent to serve a minor who is not their charge. Some states ban the sale of certain beverages over a particular proof, others tax the heck out of it and still others prevent anyone else from selling certain types or any type on certain days and certain hours. Many states punish severely any consumption of alcohol in a moving vehicle, whether or not the driver is consuming. Many states not only charge a minor with underage drinking when sipping beer in the back seat but also will revoke their license to drive. Kill another while driving drunk and a second degree murder charge awaits in many states.

This balance was struck in the name of harm prevention and mitigation, prioritizing the law's public focus on minors and DUI and mildly discouraging any consumption by limiting sales and applying a sin tax.

Obama is not proposing an outright ban but a very measured set of restrictions. Why all the objection to the very concept of restriction falling far short of an outright ban in violation of the 2nd Amendment?

You are an experienced gun user. That is my point. Of course someone that knows how to use any gun (even a revolver with speed loaders) can get off a lot of rounds fast. But, it takes practice. Where I see the danger in large magazines is from those that "lose it" and start shooting up the place.

Maybe the high capacity magazines should be purchasable only with a safey certificate, much like a hunting license. When I was a kid (under eighteen) in S Dak., I had to present my hunter safety cert. to the clerk to buy ammo.

Speaking of law makers...did you see that photo of Feinstein with her finger on the trigger in a photo op? Chills me!

Actually the people who are really fast with revolver and semi-auto handgun reloads aren't LEO they are people who spend a lot of time at the range. You would be surprised to see how many LEO's aren't that great with weapons But like any skill you have to practice to keep it fresh. I haven't fired a weapon in 2 years, so I'm probably pretty rusty....

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